The Licchavi PRINCESS BHRIKUTI DEVI, known to Tibetans as
BAL-MO-BZA\' KHRI-BTSUN, BHELSA TRITSUN ('Nepali consort') or,
simply, KHRI BTSUN ("Royal Lady"), is traditionally considered to have
been the first wife of the earliest emperor of Tibet, Songtsän Gampo
(605? - 650 CE), and an incarnation of Tara . She was also known as
"Besa", and was a princess of the Licchavi kingdom of
NepalNepal .
Songtsän Gampo (centre)
Princess WenchengPrincess Wencheng (right) and
BhrikutiBhrikuti Devi
of
NepalNepal (left)

Even though the historicity of
Bhrikuti Devi is not certain, and no
reference to her has been found among the documents discovered at
DunhuangDunhuang , "there are increasing indications supporting this
hypothesis." There were certainly very close relationships between
Tibet and
NepalNepal at this period and, "Such a mythological
interpretation discredits in no way the historical likelihood of such
a marriage...."

Many Tibetan accounts make
BhrikutiBhrikuti the daughter of Amshuvarma
(605-621 CE), co-ruler and successor of Śivadeva I. If this is
correct, the marriage to
Songtsän Gampo must have taken place
sometime before 624 CE. Acharya Kirti
TulkuTulku Lobsang Tenzin, however,
states that Songstän Gampo married Bhrkuti Devi, the daughter of king
"Angsu Varma" or
Amshuvarma (Tib: Waser Gocha) of
NepalNepal in 632.

According to some Tibetan legends, however, a Nepali king named Go
Cha (identified by Sylvain Lévi as "Udayavarman", from the literal
meaning of the Tibetan name) was said to have a daughter called
Bri-btumn or Bhṛkuti.

"Udayavarman" was most likely the same king we know as Udayadeva, the
son of Śivadeva I and later, the adopted son and heir to
Aṃshuvarmā. He was also thought to be the father of Narendradeva
(Tib: Miwang-Lha). If this is accepted, it means that Narendradeva
and
Bhrikuti Devi were brother and sister.

We do have some fairly detailed historical accounts of Narendradeva.
The (Jiu) Tangshu, or
Old Book of TangOld Book of Tang , records that when the king of
泥婆羅 Nipoluo
NepalNepal , the father of Licchavi king Naling Deva (or
Narendradeva), died, an uncle (Yu.sna kug.ti = Vishnagupta) usurped
the throne. "The Tibetans gave him refuge and reestablished him on
his throne ; that is how he became subject to Tibet."

It is not known exactly when
BhrikutiBhrikuti married Songtsän Gampo, but it
was presumably about the time that Narendradeva fled to Tibet (c. 621
CE), following Dhruvadeva's take-over of the throne (who, according to
an inscription dated in 623, was ruling jointly with Jiṣṇugupta.)

BHRIKUTI IN TIBET

This is considered to be the oldest copy of the famous traditional
history, the dBa\' bzhed , states: "Then during the reign of bTsan po
Khri Srong btsan, after his marriage with Khri btsun, the daughter of
the king of Nepal, the temple (gtsug lag khang) of Ra sa Pe har gling
was built. Furthermore, the construction of the forty-two temples of
the Ru bzhi was requested and the Brag lha was built. 'Thon mi gSam
po ra was sent by royal order in order to get the Indian doctrine and
the model of the alphabet (yi ge'i dpe). . . ." Wen Cheng's and
co-wife Bhrikuti's legacy—
JokhangJokhang Temple in Tibet—founded to house
statues of the Buddha which each bride brought with her dowry .

According to Tibetan traditions,
BhrikutiBhrikuti was a devout Buddhist and
brought many sacred images and expert Newari craftsmen with her as
part of her dowry. The Red Palace (Mar-po-ri Pho-drang) on Marpo Ri
(Red Mountain) in Lhasa, which was later rebuilt into the thirteen
storey
PotalaPotala by the Fifth
Dalai LamaDalai Lama , was constructed by Nepali
craftsmen according to her wishes. She also had constructed the
Tub-wang and other statues in
Samye and the famous Nepali artist
Thro-wo carved the revered statue of
Chenresig , Thungji Chen-po
rang-jung nga-ldan. It is also called statue of Mikyo Dorje
(Manuvajra) - the
RamocheRamoche Jowo or Jowo Chungpa which was housed in the
Ramoche Temple in Lhasa. It seems unlikely that the statue there now
is the original one brought by the Nepali princess as the temple has
been sacked at least two times - first during the
MongolMongol invasions and
later it was gutted in the 1960s. It is said that the lower half of
the statue was found in a Lhasa rubbish dump and the upper part found
in Beijing. They have been since joined together and the statue is
surrounded by the Eight Bodhisattvas .

Songtsän Gampo and
BhrikutiBhrikuti built a great temple, the Tsulag Khang
(or 'House of Wisdom') to house the images, which is now known as the
JokhangJokhang ('House of the Lord') in the heart of Lhasa, and is
considered to be the most sacred temple in Tibet. They also built the
white palace of dMar-po-ri which shifted the ancient seat of
government in the Yarlung Valley to the site of modern Lhasa.